Minnesota: Bow hunter spots two people cultivating marijuana at park

A bow hunter hired to cull the deer herd at a Mendota Heights park instead spotted two people cultivating marijuana, police said.

A member of the Metro Bowhunters Resource Base saw the harvest going down about 6:30 p.m., Friday, Sept. 21, while sitting in a tree stand on the first day of a controlled deer hunt at Valley Park, police chief Mike Aschenbrener said.

The hunter called police, who questioned Jorge Devalerio, 19, of Savage, and a 17-old St. Paul boy. Devalerio was cited for suspicion of possessing a small amount of marijuana, Aschenbrener said, adding that he expects the boy will get the same citation.

The marijuana plants, some reaching 8-feet tall, were growing at the edge of a wooded area of the park.

"They didn't just come across this," Aschenbrener said of Devalerio and the boy.

It was the second grow operation that Mendota Heights police discovered in the city over a week's time, Aschenbrener said. The other was found on private property by the landowner.

Going by similar finds across the metro recently, it appears as though it's harvest time of "the summer hidden plots of marijuana," he said.

"I guess it's about that time of the year, where like corn and soybeans, the dope is in," he said.

For charging purposes, it doesn't matter how high the tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) level is in the plants, he said. THC is the active ingredient that makes users high.